Turn to Dust
by Damariwave
Summary: Steve contemplates the lost against Thanos.


**_Avengers: Infinity War belongs to Disney, Kevin Feige, and Marvel Studios._**

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"Steve?"

Captain Rogers stood in unspoken horror as he witnessed his longtime friend and comrade, James Buchanan Barnes, turn to dust. The super soldier approached where he disintegrated, dazed. Nothing remained aside from his shotgun, which had rested itself on the surface of the Wakandan battlefield in the wake of Bucky's passing. Rather than examining the indistinct particles of his then-deceased friend's body, he turned and studied his surroundings, now confused and fearsome for the rest of his colleagues.

"Sam!" Rhodes cried out, abruptly shaken.

But the man once known as the Falcon had passed, as there had appeared no sign of him the following minute. To worsen the matter, Wanda Maximoff and her beloved android, Vision, had both been murdered, the former disintegrating and the latter's source of life having been stolen by the Almighty Thanos. Following this latest trend of fading to dust was the King of Wakanda himself, and a tear fell from his longtime friend and right-hand woman Okoye's right eye.

"Dad?" Groot whimpered.

Rocket muttered repeatedly, "No…" As he extended his paws to reach his fading friend, the tree had returned to where he had first arisen from - the ground. This is not an entirely unfamiliar sight to Rocket Raccoon, the burden of loss he must bear again, as he did once before on Xandar. He might as well have been a failure for allowing his son to die a second death.

The atmosphere quieted down as the majority of heroes whose physical selves had disintegrated at random after Thanos' leave were granted a moment of silence, despite this having less to do with the remaining soldiers' respect for their friends and more in touch with their shock, unaware of the larger play at hand.

Vision's corpse had grown noticeably monochromatic, and Steve Rogers turned his body over. Strange how despite the others turning to dust Vision instead died as an actual corpse, Rogers thought, before quickly remembering him being an android and dismissing the thought altogether.

"Oh, God." He said, breaking the silence with those two words before the ambience became bleak once more.

A hard-fought battle with more than a dissatisfying outcome as the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, were finally overcome. They'd traded blows, eradicated the Black Order, and even came close to killing Thanos; all that being stated, their previous heroics had been undone; compromised by the reality of things.

Inconsequential efforts, negated by the might of the Mad Titan Thanos. A war they had lost from the moment the Wakandan army began chanting their battle cry. A boundful defeat, as destiny cannot be avoided no matter the circumstances. Those who fight to alter fate are those who have signed their own death note. There is no substitution for demise, and misplaced hope usually never results in victory.

Not as if they hadn't destroyed themselves two years prior to this, anyways. The Accords of course may have paid dividends in spite of their loss, such could be figured due to the team being split into different factions. Loss in numbers serves an immediate blow to the overall stature of any team. Had Rogers and Stark not settled their differences in such a childish manner, then maybe the outcome of the situation at hand would be different.

Then again, maybe not. Do the apparent mightiest heroes of earth fail all the same, regardless of their oneness? Is the universe not destined for the arrival of Thanos? Surely a madman such as he is unfit to be a ruler, no less to decide who lives and who doesn't. Of course the price of death is only small to the murderer and the nihilist, so his mentality is, in the first place, psychopathic. But the question remains: Is infinity in resources a preferable alternative to massacre?

You would not receive an answer from any of our fallen heroes. Their minds were made up, their actions obligated to their own objective moralisms and willingly enough unaccepting of the situation at hand; the realization of defeat, that they had failed not only half the inhabitants of the universe, but their friends, family, and above anything else their own selves. They were once heroes, but now they were disappointments, and loss was sometimes a difficult pill to swallow. But _especially_ now, in this situation.

This was the reason Steve Rogers, formerly known as Captain America, had felt stripped of himself, and was currently staring off into the distance contemplating his subduement. In Siberia two years ago he had lost the mantle of Captain America and leadership of the Avengers, had become a fugitive and went into hiding alongside partners Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson. They became vigilantes and traveled the world with an enduring heroism. Quiet as kept, they had laughed, cried and formed many memories together. So despite him losing much of his superhero colleagues, he still had those two, and he did cherish their presence regardless of the less-than-ideal circumstances. Then Thanos appears and slaughters everyone in his path, demolishing all he had left.

To think, he'd even caught up with a few of his past comrades. Bruce, Rhodes, Wanda, Vision, and his sole link to the past and childhood friend, Bucky Barnes. Respetcful of his friend's wishes, he'd left him to recuperate in Wakanda, only to spend limited time with Bucky due to the infinity war. Then Bucky died a second death, henceforth Steve's connection to the past died as well. The war against Thanos was the most similar occurence to Rogers' misfortune with the Avengers.

Admittedly, he never once figured the Avengers would reunite someday, because the damage had been dealt and the relations between the team's two co-leaders were practically irreparable. Neither Rogers nor Stark were willing to forgive one another and as a known war criminal Rogers didn't actually feel the need to rebrand the team. Their credibility had been tarnished since the very moment they stood together facing Loki and the Chitauri in New York. The casualties that came with facing Hydra and Ultron only worsened the reputation of The Avengers, and Steve wasn't one to trade lives for the sake of togetherness.

But in the end, none of the actions he made could save anyone from dying. More people died when the Avengers were not together than when they were a team. Steve didn't necessarily regret not signing the Accords, but if the Avengers were destined to fail all the same, they could've at least failed together. Even that would've been a preferable death than what had occurred. To worsen the matter, Steve was still alive, but most of his friends were dead. And there was nothing he could do to bring them back.

He failed.

"Steve."

In silence he turned his head to a familiar face; the Black Widow. Her arm reached out toward him in anticipation he'd take her hand, and their eyes met as the sunlight stood still, complementing her finest features. Her beauty transcendent by daylight, her worrisome gaze comforting his visible emotional hazard. The brightness above shone a series of radiant rays reflected off her ivory skin. Conciliation appeared within her eyes, but not overshadowing the omnipresent yet appropriate fear. Melancholy had manifested itself in its most feminine form with the Black Widow. Not often did she appear so delicate in front of a comrade, no less during such dire times. _She's beautiful_ , Rogers thought.

In the six years wherein Rogers worked alongside Natasha, he never once complimented her irreplaceable poise. Of course he'd acknowledged her appearance as part of her repertoire, and of course he wanted to, but figuring she'd been told so a million times in the past he came to the conclusion that all words of the sort had lost their effect on her. Still, he mentally found no other words to describe her, and she had now sparked a wistful feeling that he wished would last forever. Nonetheless he then returned to the grimness of reality, albeit tempted to live in the past.

 _What the hell am I thinking?_ He couldn't give in now, not when the world needed him most. He was still Steve Rogers; super soldier, the world's first superhero, the man who survived nearly seventy years frozen in ice. He would always be an Avenger, even if they were a defunct organization. Heroism isn't a belonging aspect of any particular agency, it is the perserverance of justice no matter the circumstances - the redemption of the unjust, and the ability to remain optimistic during even the darkest of days; salvation of the faint light called hope.

Steve then studied the dreary atmosphere, its inescapable nihilism having overcome any sign of buoyancy, the eyes of his fellow warmates focused solely on him now, as he had mustered enough willpower to stand tall without a trace of fear draped on his facial expression. They were as lost and confused as the captain himself, almost as if they were in need of leadership. He approached Natasha, her pupils not leaving his, and her body stiffening a bit before she released an unheard gasp.

A single tear trailed her right eye.

The solemn silence between them created an unspoken warmth. She felt her face soften as Steve's pragmatic stare complimented her fear. He wiped her tear, leaving her eyes stranded in his as he faced his onlooking crowd. The small band of emotionally beatdown men and women hadn't done as little as whisper in the past few minutes, the shock having twisted their tongues; destiny having turned their legs to jelly.

And he spoke.

"We may have lost the fight, but the war is ours for taking." Rogers plead. "Death is not the end. We need to locate Thanos and remove the infinity gauntlet. As long as one man stands against him, he'll never be able to claim victory."

The remaining combatants slowly nodded. Some stared at the surface of the battleground in a pessimistic muse. The captain was not taken aback by their defeatist reaction to his perhaps misplaced battle cry, but he would not allow their despair to result in more loss. He would fight as a leader, as he felt he should be, and he would be willing to kill the Mad Titan Thanos at any cost. A great deal of people would have to sacrifice their lives in defending the earth from his grasp, but war granted inevitable deaths, and naturally Steve was the first man among the present group of heroes to willingly put his life on the line for the betterment of humanity, as this was the person he had been for the entirety of his life, and would be for the remainder of it.

Heroism merely conceals itself in propaganda pieces; the man wears the suit, the suit doesn't wear the man. Born out of a beastly willingness to uphold righteousness and objective moral values, it is not limited to catchphrases, capes, damsels in distress and other clichés. Only a minimum amount of people throughout history have managed to save lives without dying in the process of their heroic crusades. The weight of the dead is borne by those who are still breathing, as they look onward and walk headstrong into their next battle.

 ** _I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY._**


End file.
